Jaime Sharp's Blog

"A lucky group of artists in New York will get guaranteed income as part of an ambitious pilot program," said Jo Lawson-Tancred for artnet news. "The Creatives Rebuild New York (CRNY) initiative has announced that it is spending $43.2 million to distribute monthly payments of $1,000 to 2,400 to artists and other creatives living across the state. Lasting for 18 months, these cash payments come with no strings attached. "

From the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies: "The arts and creativity are increasingly recognized as necessary infrastructure for healthy, prosperous and equitable communities, regardless of community size or geography. The evidence backing the value of the arts continues to grow as more states and cities invest in arts based policies as a means to improve community health and well-being."

"As we presented in a previous From the Research Team, NASAA and the National League of Cities (NLC) collaborated to create a series of blog posts highlighting the strength of infusing the arts into communities in Colorado, New Hampshire and Rhode Island. Building on this blog series, NASAA and NLC convened a webinar, Leveraging Partnerships in the Arts to Strengthen Public Health, to further highlight arts and health work in Rhode Island and illustrate how arts and health programming is accomplished."

"Order this year’s CSA from Springboard for the Arts, and you won’t get squash or cucumbers. You’ll get monthly deliveries of unique local art." said Jared Kaufman for TwinCities Pioneer Press. "At the St. Paul artist resource organization, CSA stands for community-supported art. It’s an intentional nod to a better-known version of CSA — community-supported agriculture — through which people can support local farms for a whole growing season by pre-purchasing a subscription to receive regular fresh produce."

From the National Endowment for the Arts: "On Wednesday, January 11, 2023, from 3:00 pm - 4:00 pm ET, Arts Endowment staff will conduct a webinar on the Grants for Arts Projects guidelines. The webinar will include an overview of the funding category and tips for applicants, as well as a Q&A session."

"Grants for Arts Projects is the principal grants program of the National Endowment for the Arts for organizations based in the United States. Through project-based funding, the program supports public engagement with, and access to, various forms of art across the nation, the creation of art, learning in the arts at all stages of life, and the integration of the arts into the fabric of community life."

From Creative Generation: "During this episode of Why Change? co-hosts Ashraf and Jeff reflect on disrupting the field of community foundations through Ashraf’s interview with Celeste Smith, Senior Program Manager for Arts and Culture at The Pittsburgh Foundation, and Jonathan Cunningham, Senior Program Officer at Seattle Foundation. In this episode, you’ll hear conversations about systemic change in the way community foundations fund projects and smaller, BIPOC-led organizations, as well as how some foundations are funding beyond trauma and instead focusing on joy." Listen to the episode here.

From The White House: "By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, it is hereby ordered as follows: Section 1. Policy. The arts, the humanities, and museum and library services are essential to the well-being, health, vitality, and democracy of our Nation. They are the soul of America, reflecting our multicultural and democratic experience. They further help us strive to be the more perfect Union to which generation after generation of Americans have aspired. They inspire us; provide livelihoods; sustain, anchor, and bring cohesion within diverse communities across our Nation; stimulate creativity and innovation; help us understand and communicate our values as a people; compel us to wrestle with our history and enable us to imagine our future; invigorate and strengthen our democracy; and point the way toward progress."

"At the Robert Sterling Clark Foundation, we know that strong leadership is necessary to create a more equitable and vibrant New York City."

"We also know that many of the practices, systems, and structures, which sustain inequality in our communities, also show up in our organizations and our sector, limiting our view of who a leader is and what impactful leadership looks like. As such, while many organizations are eager to transition from white leaders to leaders of color, they often do not have the experience, expertise, commitment, or supports in place to fully embrace new leadership and make these transitions successful or joyful. Too often, it is the new leaders of color who pay the price for under-prepared organizations."

"As we continue to understand and move resources to directly support leaders of color during these transitions, we wanted to take a closer look at ourselves and our grantee community. Making (or Taking) Space seeks to inform our question: What, specifically, is the responsibility of organizations with white leaders transitioning out of these roles to support incoming leaders of color?"

From the Alliance for California Traditional Arts: "Every cultural community in the United States is rooted in a sense of belonging, shared by members, and anchored by collective wisdom and aesthetics. These roots of cultural heritage are maintained, strengthened, and expanded through the practice of folk and traditional arts. The realities of slavery, displacement, structural racism, systemic poverty, and cultural appropriation have tested the strength of these cultural roots. The stresses are even more apparent, viewed against our present-day national reckoning with these harms amidst a global pandemic. In this context, traditional arts practices are potent political acts of social belonging, power, and justice. From this field have emerged works and artists of beauty, technical prowess, and meaning."

Forecast Public Art has released Issue 5 of FORWARD, "a digital publication and conversation series from Forecast, a nonprofit that activates, inspires, and advocates for public art that advances justice, health, and human dignity." "FORWARD highlights how artists are partnering with cities, institutions, and communities to courageously tackle the vital issues of our time. This fifth issue, made in collaboration with NeighborWorks America, focuses on housing.

From the Toronto Arts Council: "As the newest wave of protests by Black bodies sets the world ablaze in 2020 once again, loudly demanding the right to live, work, play and in the case of this report, make art, organizations both public and private seem to be taking yet another step towards equity for Black bodies. Toronto Arts Council (TAC) is no exception and is showing leadership as it steps up to acknowledge its own shortcomings in support of Black Artists by designing a new grant program stream specifically for Black artists/arts organizations, which according to 90% of participants in the consultations that inform this report, is very much needed."